Romans 9 - 11 — Legacy Standard Bible

God’s Chosen People, Israel

9^aI am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, ²that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. ³For ^aI could ¹wish that I myself were ^baccursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen ^caccording to the flesh, ⁴who are ^aIsraelites, to whom belongs ^bthe adoption as sons, and ^cthe glory and ^dthe covenants and ^ethe giving of the Law and ^fthe temple service and the promises, ⁵whose are ^athe fathers, and ^bfrom whom is the ¹Christ according to the flesh, ^cwho is ^dGod over all, ^eblessed ²forever. Amen.

⁶But it is not as though ^athe word of God has failed. ^bFor they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel; ⁷nor are they all children ^abecause they are Abraham’s seed, but: “¹^,^bthrough Isaac your seed will be named.” ⁸That is, the children of the flesh are not the ^achildren of God, but the ^bchildren of the promise are considered as seed. ⁹For this is the word of promise: “^aAt this time I will come, and Sarah shall have a son.” ¹⁰^aAnd not only this, but there was ^bRebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac; ¹¹for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that the ^apurpose of God according to His choice would ¹stand, not ²because of works but ³because of Him who calls, ¹²it was said to her, “^aThe older shall serve the younger.” ¹³Just as it is written, “^aJacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

¹⁴^aWhat shall we say then? ^bIs there any unrighteousness with God? ^cMay it never be! ¹⁵For He says to Moses, “^aI will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” ¹⁶So then it does not depend on the one who wills or the one who ^aruns, but on ^bGod who has mercy. ¹⁷For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “^aFor this very purpose I raised you up, in order to demonstrate My power in you, and in order that My name might be proclaimed ¹throughout the whole earth.” ¹⁸So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He ^ahardens whom He desires.

¹⁹^aYou will say to me then, “^bWhy does He still find fault? For ^cwho resists His will?” ²⁰On the contrary, who are you, ^aO man, who ^banswers back to God? ^cWill the thing molded say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this”? ²¹Or does not the potter have authority over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel ¹for honorable use and another ²for dishonorable use? ²²And ¹what if God, wanting to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much ^apatience vessels of wrath ^bhaving been prepared for destruction, ²³and in order that He might make known ^athe riches of His glory upon ^bvessels of mercy, which He ^cprepared beforehand for glory— ²⁴even us, whom He also ^acalled, ^bnot from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles? ²⁵As He says also in Hosea, “^aI will call those who were not My people, ‘My people,’And her who was not beloved, ‘beloved.’”

²⁶“^aAnd it shall be that in the place where it was said to them, ‘you are not My people,’There they shall be called sons of ^bthe living God.”

²⁷And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, “^aThough the number of the sons of Israel be ^blike the sand of the sea, it is ^cthe remnant that will be saved; ²⁸^afor the Lord will execute His word on the land, ¹thoroughly and ²quickly.” ²⁹And just as Isaiah foretold, “^aUnless ^bthe Lord of ¹Sabaoth had left to us a seed,^cWe would have become like Sodom, and would have ²resembled Gomorrah.”

³⁰^aWhat shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, laid hold of righteousness, even ^bthe righteousness which is ¹by faith; ³¹but Israel, ^apursuing a law of righteousness, did not ^battain that law. ³²Why? Because they did not pursue it ¹by faith, but as though it were ²by works. They stumbled over ^athe stumbling stone, ³³just as it is written, “^aBehold, I am laying in Zion ^ba stone of stumbling and a rock of offense,^cAnd the one who believes upon Him ^dwill not be put to shame.”

10Brothers, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation. ²For I testify about them that they have ^aa zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. ³For not knowing about the ^arighteousness of God and ^bseeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. ⁴For ^aChrist is the ¹end of the law for righteousness to ^beveryone who believes.

Faith Comes by Hearing

⁵For Moses writes about the righteousness which is of law: “^aThe man who does these things shall live by them.” ⁶But ^athe righteousness of faith speaks in this way: “^bDo not say in your heart, ‘Who will go up into heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ down), ⁷or ‘Who will go down into the ^aabyss?’ (that is, to ^bbring Christ up from the dead).” ⁸But what does it say? “^aThe word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart”—that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, ⁹¹that ^aif you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and ^bbelieve in your heart that ^cGod raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; ¹⁰for with the heart a person believes, ¹leading to righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, ²leading to salvation. ¹¹For the Scripture says, “^aWhoever believes upon Him will not be put to shame.” ¹²For ^athere is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is ^bLord of ^call, abounding in riches for all who call on Him, ¹³for “^aWhoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

¹⁴How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him ^awhom they have not heard? And how will they hear without ^ba preacher? ¹⁵And how will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, “^aHow beautiful are the feet of those who ^bproclaim good news of good things!”

¹⁶However, they ^adid not all heed the ¹good news, for Isaiah says, “^bLord, who has believed our report?” ¹⁷So faith comes from ^ahearing, and hearing by ^bthe word ¹of Christ.

¹⁸But I say, have they never heard? On the contrary, they have; “^aTheir voice has gone out into all the earth,And their words to the ends of the ¹world.”

¹⁹But I say, did Israel not know? First Moses says, “^aI will ^bmake you jealous by that which is not a nation,By a nation without understanding will I anger you.”

²⁰And Isaiah is very bold and says, “^aI was found by those who did not seek Me,I became manifest to those who did not ask for Me.”

²¹But as for Israel He says, “^aAll day long I have stretched out My hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.”

God Has Not Rejected Israel

11I say then, has God ^arejected His people? ^bMay it never be! For ^cI too am an Israelite, a seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. ²¹^,^aGod has not rejected His people whom He ^bforeknew. ^cOr do you not know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? ³“Lord, ^athey have killed Your prophets, they have torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they are seeking my life.” ⁴But what does the divine response say to him? “^aI have left for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” ⁵In this way then, at the present time, ^aa remnant according to God’s ¹gracious choice has also come to be. ⁶But ^aif it is by grace, it is no longer of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace.

⁷What then? What ^aIsrael is seeking, it has not obtained, but the chosen obtained it, and the rest were ^bhardened; ⁸just as it is written, “¹^,^aGod gave them a spirit of stupor,Eyes to see not and ears to hear not,Down to this very day.”

⁹And David says, “^aLet their table become a snare and a trap,And a stumbling block and a retribution to them.

¹⁰“^aLet their eyes be darkened to see not,And bend their backs forever.”

Gentiles Grafted In

¹¹^aI say then, did they stumble so as to fall? ^bMay it never be! But by their transgression ^csalvation has come to the Gentiles, to ^dmake them jealous. ¹²Now if their transgression is riches for the world and their failure is riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their ¹^,^afullness be! ¹³But I am speaking to you who are Gentiles. Inasmuch then as ^aI am an apostle of Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, ¹⁴if somehow I might ^amove to jealousy ^bmy ¹fellow countrymen and ^csave some of them. ¹⁵For if their rejection is the ^areconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but ^blife from the dead? ¹⁶And if the ^afirst piece of dough is holy, the lump is also; and if the root is holy, the branches are too.

¹⁷But if some of the ^abranches were broken off, and ^byou, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became a partaker with them of the ¹rich root of the olive tree, ¹⁸do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast against them, remember that ^ait is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you. ¹⁹^aYou will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” ²⁰Quite right! They were broken off for their unbelief, but you ^astand by your faith. ^bDo not be haughty, but fear, ²¹for if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you, either. ²²Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God’s ^akindness, ^bif you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also ^cwill be cut off. ²³And they also, ^aif they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. ²⁴For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these who are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree?

All Israel Will Be Saved

²⁵For ^aI do not want you, brothers, to be uninformed of this ^bmystery—so that you will not be ^cwise in your own estimation—that a partial ^dhardening has happened to Israel until the ^efullness of the Gentiles has come in; ²⁶and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, “^aThe Deliverer will come from Zion,He will remove ungodliness from Jacob.”

²⁷“^aAnd this is ¹My covenant with them,^bWhen I take away their sins.”

²⁸¹From the standpoint of the gospel they are ^aenemies for your sake, but ²from the standpoint of God’s choice they are beloved for ^bthe sake of the fathers; ²⁹for the gifts and the ^acalling of God ^bare irrevocable. ³⁰For just as you once were disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of their disobedience, ³¹so these also now have been disobedient, that because of the mercy shown to you they also may now be shown mercy. ³²For ^aGod has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all.

³³Oh, the depth of ^athe riches and ^bwisdom and knowledge of God! ^cHow unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! ³⁴For ^awho has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor? ³⁵Or ^awho has first given to Him ¹that it might be repaid to him? ³⁶For ^afrom Him and through Him and to Him are all things. ^bTo Him be the glory ¹forever. Amen.